Carol Bennett

Carol Bennett was a 63-year-old White woman who worked as a tax preparer in Long Prairie, Minnesota. She and her husband, Barry Bennett, were longtime residents who were deeply involved in their community and members of the First Baptist Church, where Carol volunteered as the treasurer. Barry, also 63, was a retired physical education teacher and a former NFL defensive lineman who had played for several teams, including the Minnesota Vikings. The couple had five children.

On August 21, 2019, a friend of Barry’s asked authorities to perform a welfare check at the Bennetts' rural home on Ginsend Road. The friend had been unable to reach Barry since the previous day. When deputies from the Todd County Sheriff's Office arrived, they discovered the bodies of both Carol and Barry Bennett inside the residence. A medical examiner later confirmed that both had died from multiple gunshot wounds and that the homicides likely occurred on or around August 19.

Investigators quickly identified the couple’s 22-year-old son, Dylan John Bennett, as the suspect. He was living at the home at the time of the killings. The criminal complaint revealed that months earlier, in December 2018, Barry Bennett had told the sheriff’s office that Dylan had expressed “homicidal thoughts about killing his parents” while in a mental health treatment facility. After the murders, Dylan withdrew a large amount of cash from his parents’ bank account and used his mother’s car and credit cards to travel through Wisconsin and Illinois. He abandoned the car in a motel parking lot in Columbus, Ohio, and on August 21, he boarded a flight to Cancun, Mexico, sparking an international manhunt.

The search for Dylan Bennett involved local law enforcement, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, and the FBI, who worked with Mexican authorities to track him down. On August 24, 2019, federal agents arrested him at a hotel in Cancun. He was extradited back to the United States and booked into the Todd County Jail, where he was charged with two counts of second-degree murder, which were later upgraded to two counts of premeditated first-degree murder.

After initially pleading not guilty, Dylan Bennett changed his plea on August 24, 2020. In Todd County District Court, the now 23-year-old pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder for the shooting deaths of his parents. A judge immediately sentenced him to two concurrent life sentences in prison without the possibility of parole. The case was closed with his sentencing in August 2020.